One of the usual complications of diabetes is the breakdown of the blood vessels that feed the retina, which is the part of the eye that processes images. Retinopathy occurs when blood leaks out of those vessels into the eye, causing blurred vision and ultimately blindness. Eighty percent of all patients who have suffered from diabetes for ten years develop diabetic retinopathy as a consequence.
As interesting as the theory behind stem cell therapy might be, its results are what is most important. We’d like to share with you some of our case-histories. These two deal with arthritis.
A seventy-four-year-old woman, a doctor who retired to Baja California, presented at ProgenCell with metabolic disorder and rheumatoid arthritis.
A forty-four-year-old man came to us with scleroderma in 2008. His disease had already progressed several years by then and his skin had become hardened almost like cardboard. He was unable to turn his head because of the tightness of his neck and speech was difficult because of tightness of his lips. He had only limited movement in his hands and fingers and complained of pain in his joints and back as well as depression.
In the past, people with arthritis have had to resign themselves to it as being just another part of growing old. Traditional treatment emphasizes medications – anti-inflammatories and analgesics – to mask the symptoms. This lessens the amount of pain a patient experiences but it does not help the patient get better.
Medical science still doesn’t know what causes autism, which is a spectrum disorder of the brain that appears with varying severity in as much as one percent of the population, but we do know that the spectrum is associated with restricted flow of blood to the brain and with immune dysregulation.
The connection between autism and the immunological system has created a lot of interest within the regenerative medicine community.
Systemic lupus erythematosus (also called “SLE” and “lupus”) is a chronic autoimmune disease of connective tissues that can affect any part of the body. The immune system mistakenly attacks the body’s own cells and tissue and causes inflammation and tissue damage and, with lupus, this damage occurs most commonly to the heart, joints, skin, lungs,
Systemic sclerosis, also called scleroderma, is a disabling disease in which a patient’s soft tissues become hardened by fibrosis. This can affect skin, muscles, vital internal organs, and blood vessels. Most patients also experience numbness in their extremities and intensified reactions to cold and to anxiety. The cause of scleroderma is believed to be auto-immunological.
Neovascular age-related macular degeneration (AMD) is a major cause of visual impairment in older people. The patient loses vision in the center of the visual field and is left with only the ability to see colors and shapes. This condition is currently being treated with laser coagulation and expensive monthly injections into the eye’s vitreous humor;
